Sustain Illinois: Illinois' Green Busness Competition
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About

The Chicago West Side Entrepreneurship Center, a non-profit economic and business development organization, and the Chicago Sustainable Business Alliance, have joined together to launch Sustain Illinois, a highly selective entrepreneurial competition where sustainable companies have the opportunity to compete for a combined $22,500 cash prize (made possible through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity).

The cash prizes are designed to encourage and reward companies for implementing or planning sustainable products, services, or processes that have or will have a lasting economic effect on Illinois. For the purpose of this competition, Sustainability is referred to as triple bottom line (3BL), or "people, planet, profit", or those companies that capture an expanded spectrum of blended values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success: economic, ecological and social.

Up to six companies will be selected for the competition in each of the two tracks listed below (up to 12 companies total). Additionally, an audience choice award will be selected during a separate fast pitch competition during the final awards reception in May during the Sustainovate conference.

Sustainable Product or Service ($10,000 cash prize)
A company that features a sustainably based (Green/3BL) product or service that will have a lasting economic impact on the state of Illinois.

Sustainable Process ($10,000 cash prize)
A company that has adopted or is in the process of adopting significant internal sustainable process to its business structure (3BL or ISO 14001 certification) that is having a lasting economic impact on the state of Illinois

Audience Choice Award ($2,500 cash prize)
This bonus track will be a one minute fast pitch competition which participating companies may choose to apply for in addition to one of the tracks above. The fast pitch competition will take place at the awards ceremony with the winner choosing which company they favor.